All good points. I offered my impression that they represent the mainstream as an impression only, because I'm not a member of their target demographic. And it's not always a given that an editorial reflects the opinion of the majority of the readership.

It may be correct that the papers are targeted at the upper levels. The significance might then shift to giving voice to the concerns of the officer corps, in the context of the discrepancy between what the active-duty generals say versus the statements of the retirees. Now we're asking if the editorial reflects the unvoiced opinions of the generals.

That in its way is an even more important question, but we still have only one datum. I'd like to know whether the opinions of our professional soldiers are being distorted or stifled for partisan political reasons. It's an example of the "high politics" I described--this is a matter of national security and belongs in the political arena for examination by the citizenry, regardless of whose ox is gored.

The prospect of a Democratic Congress brings the prospect of a storm of investigations. I can understand how it might look like political retribution from the side of those being investigated. But those investigations will answer questions like that, and they're vital to the national security. It really doesn't matter if Democrats are motivated by partisanship to launch investigations that are in the national interest--it's a confluence of interests that works out to the country's advantage.

To riff fullspeed ahead in that philosophical vein, politics isn't actually a bad thing, nor is partisanship. It's built into the system as one of the forces constituting chex-n-balances. The Founders wanted motivation, they got motivation, big time, by channeling the base desire for revenge into serving the higher goal of correcting the equally inevitable excesses of power. They were smart to write down only the blueprints for the inspiring marble edifices of the visible institutions. The whole truth about how the sausage is made is not a pretty sight, but it works.

That's American™-brand political sausage for ya. Sometimes you're the grinder, sometimes you're the grindee.